“This is a significant acquisition that changes the ProcureTech landscape in our key customer markets,” commented CEO James Leathem.
ProcureTech scaleup VendorPanel, a leading Australian procurement platform operating in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, has acquired EBMS Nimblex, developer of the Nimblex suite of low-code procurement solutions. The acquisition enables VendorPanel to deliver on its long-term product vision by providing an end-to-end Source-to-Pay solution that will challenge global software providers in the government, enterprise and SME markets.
First developed in 2010, Nimblex has become a leader in the Australian procurement solutions market. Enterprise clients such as the Governments of South Australia and Western Australia, Melbourne Airport, Yarra Valley Water, and Hastings and New Plymouth councils in New Zealand rely on Nimblex for procurement planning, and for vendor, risk and contract management.
Nimblex Contract Management has now been integrated with the VendorPanel sourcing platform. Further integrations are underway, fast-tracking VendorPanel’s roadmap in delivering a modular, enterprise-grade Source-to-Pay procurement platform. This direction aligns with the views of Gartner and other analysts (Source: Don’t Assume You Have to Use an S2S Suite to Digitalize Procurement and Sourcing. April 2019, Gartner Inc) that ecosystems of integrated, best-of-breed tools will increasingly take market share from traditional Procure-to-Pay monoliths.
“This is a significant acquisition that changes the procuretech landscape in our key customer markets,” commented VendorPanel CEO James Leathem. “We are excited about it for a number of reasons. Firstly, it fast tracks our product roadmap by at least three to four years. That’s a big win for customers. Secondly, we gain access to powerful low-code (Gartner has forecast that, by 2024, low-code application development will be responsible for more than 65% of application development activity. Source: Forecast Analysis: Low-Code Development Technologies. Feb 2021, Gartner Inc), drag-and-drop tools to give customers unparalleled flexibility in aligning technology with business processes and policies. Thirdly, we are delighted to welcome over fifty Nimblex clients, strengthening our position in our key markets of corporate, state and local government and significantly broadening our geographic footprint.
“Finally, we know from partnering on recent opportunities that there is an excellent cultural fit across the two teams. Customers will see very little disruption in the short term, while we work together to deliver the medium and longer-term benefits. In short, Nimblex brings us a rich suite of technology, a strong customer base, and an experienced team.”
Nimblex founder Bert Myburgh has spent time with a number of customers over the past week. “I wanted to personally outline the plans to bring these businesses together” he said, “and the reaction in those discussions has been hugely positive.”
Yarra Valley Water serves over two million customers in suburban Melbourne and has been a Nimblex client since 2018. Dominique Gibert, Manager of Procurement and Contracts, commented: “With Nimblex, Yarra Valley Water has a solution that has
enabled a world-class strategic procurement and contract management function. VendorPanel is a well-regarded, established provider and we’re looking forward to seeing what the combination of these two businesses will bring.”
All 28 Nimblex employees, including founder Bert Myburgh and Head of Technology Stuart Murray, have joined VendorPanel, giving the business a presence in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, as well as in the US.
